The Missing Link

The top pic is before the wrenches came out that morning.

The second pic is with the swingarm and linkage assemblies removed.

Nice, huh?

Swingarm and linkage assemblies up on the old (I estimate 45 years old) work bench, mingling with my dad's ancient (and now unused) red toolbox, extension cords, and the odd sneaker.

Good company for some precision parts. :)

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..............................Time for some more friggin' dots because Bloggermania is trying to cram my shit together into one big mess............

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The pics above show what your dirt bike should look like from time-to-time if you want to do your own (and very much required) chassis maintenance.

Basically, where the suspension arms and levers move and pivot, there are bearings, collars, oil seals, and bolts that need to be greased from time-to-time.

If not, the grease in there will eventually dry-up and loose it's ability to lubricate these parts.

When that happens, your bike looks and sounds and rides like your retarded cousin Lenny's old 1982 XR-200R.

You know, the one that smokes when it runs and makes as much noise from squeaky and rattling parts as it makes noise from the rotting muffler. :)

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Taking the suspension parts off the bike to put grease on these parts on a regular basis is something that was actually known as having to be done when the bike was on the designers' drawing boards (or PCs, these days).

However, lots of folks will simply turn a blind eye to this stuff because it's some kind of mysterious black art, too difficult, or simply too much like work.

I'm not exactly grinning ear-to-ear, myself, when I do it, but, I'd feel much worse if I let the parts go to hell in a hand basket and then had to go in there not for routine maintenance, but having to replace all of those by-then ruined parts.

That would be easily twice as time consuming, not to mention expensive.

You see, all it costs me to do this maintenance is the time to do it - I already have the tools and grease in my possession.

So, I'm a'doin' it, Lenny.

You should, too.

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I'm off to finish greasing the parts, and with any luck, I'll finish the job either after jerk tonight, or tomorrow morning before jerk.

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-John